


Road Trip

by Icouldrun



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, Natasha Romanov (mentioned) - Freeform, Post Civil War, The road trip fic nobody needed, pietro maximoff - Freeform, pre infinity war
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-06
Updated: 2018-07-06
Packaged: 2019-06-06 07:46:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15190097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Icouldrun/pseuds/Icouldrun
Summary: They fear her and feel failed by him, but at least they have each other.





	Road Trip

Wanda hadn’t known loneliness until Pietro died.

They’d been separated in the HYDRA base where they were given further enhancements, but with her growing powers she’d always felt him even if he was on the other side of the base. Before that, the longest they’d gone alone was the twelve minutes it took her to meet him outside their mother’s womb.

His death had ripped her soul in half and left behind an ugly bleeding wound that was haphazardly stitched up with time.

Time with the Avengers had been healing, and she’d learned so much about her powers, but it wasn’t enough. When that moment came she had only seen a man about to explode and she hadn’t thought except that she had to get him away from Steve. The deaths that followed… they filled her nightmares.

The things that came after, the Accords, the fight at the airport, the Raft… Wanda began to learn exactly what loneliness was.

First it was Bucky who went into cryo in Wakanda. She may not have known him very well, but they had fought on the same side and she counted him as an ally that was no longer there.

Clint was the hardest to say goodbye too. His family’s existence had been exposed on the raft and he had to move quickly after their rescue to get them and go underground without Laura and kids being used against him. He had asked her to come with him, but she knew she would be a burden. Wanda was the most wanted, right after Captain America for her role in the Sokovian Accords.

Next it was Scott. He had a family to think of and a government that was closing in on his identity and loved ones.

They lost Sam next. A bullet that had ripped right through his belly and the long crash from the sky to the ground that she hadn’t been able to catch. He was a fighter though and was recovering in Wakanda albeit slowly. Their technology was advanced, but it had taken them a while to bring their injured comrade to the hidden capital and that time had left extensive damage.

Wanda learned loneliness after that. It was that ugly feeling that she wasn’t good enough, or that she was the reason everything had gone wrong. It was staring up at the roof for hours after Steve had fallen asleep, lost to his own demons and regrets.

Injustice was turning on the news and hearing a perky newscaster just weeks after the Raft announce,  _“In other news, Tony Stark is to be the recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Mr. Stark has been praised for his part in the Sokovian Accords, which have been described as the most necessary precaution in the rise of enhanced individuals.”_

“Wanda, it will be okay.” Steve had told her. He was tired and she might have felt guilty for needing his reassurance when he was clearly just as tired and aimless as she was, except that her anger got the best of her. She didn’t need a mirror to know her eyes were glowing red, and she could feel her powers rising just beneath her skin, just begging for an excuse and release.

“How can you say that?”

“Wanda, really, it will be okay. It won’t be like this forever.”

She wanted to believe him, she really did want to trust that he was right. The world always had a funny way of letting the dust settle before the chaos started all over again, though. Wanda thought she might know that much better than most.

They were sleeping in the same bed, but that was nothing new. Most hotels assumed they were a married couple and they’d long since lost any shyness over sleeping back to back.

When she finally felt her body give up and slip into a fitful sleep, she knew the past wouldn’t leave her alone that night.

* * *

 

_Her clothes were soiled when the first signs of natural light appeared. It had been two days and she knew another might mean the lack of water killed them before the bomb just feet away from them did it._

_“Are you down there?” one of there would be rescuers called, and Wanda tapped the metal of her bracelet against the frame of the fallen bed when neither her or Pietro could get words out of their parched throats._

_Their rescuers did not see the bomb until Wanda was out and Pietro not far behind her. She knew they probably would not have kept up their rescue efforts had they known the danger they stood just above._

_They stunk of urine, dust, and blood when they were passed on from the debris of their home and brought to a medical tent to be cleaned and treated. Wanda took one look back at the final resting place of her parents and sent a quick prayer that things could not get any worse._

_But God never liked to listen to her._

* * *

 

They have breakfast in the hotel lobby early in the morning before they take off. Wanda uses a bit of her power to make sure the girl at the front desk doesn’t think they’re anything worth looking at than the average traveler passing through town.

She was finally seeing the United States, albeit as a wanted fugitive.

“Has anything come up?” she asks Steve after having her styrofoam cup of tea. It was a cheap brand the hotel had out that numbed the tip of her tongue but gave her the kick to wake up.

His blue eyes were warm despite another night of restless sleep for the both of them. “Nothing. Guess we’ll just drive today.”

His feelings are loud and her own mind locks onto them before she can stop herself. She tries to give him privacy and she would never intentionally pry, but his self-doubt and fear are so potent today that she doesn’t think they can continue on without at least talking about it.

“Just because the others are gone doesn’t mean you were wrong,” the words slip out of her before she can think to better phrase them. He looks at her over his toast and raises his eyebrows. Wanda sighs and sets her empty cup down, “it may just be you and I right now, but you were right about the Accords. They were unjust and I’m proud to have not signed them.”

“I wasn’t going to sign them as they stood then, but why are you telling me this, Wanda?”

“I sense how you’re feeling right now, Steve. It’s… it’s overwhelming.” Overwhelming is the only way to describe it. Outside it’s still dark with thick clouds and light rain, and inside feels the same more or less.

“I’m not upset about the Accords. If I had to do it all over again I think it would have turned out the same.”

“But…”

He gives her a small smile and shrugs just a bit. “I’m bored, to be honest. There’s always been a mission or work that needed to be done. Or even just learning how to use the internet. Now? I’m not really sure what I  _should_  be doing. I’m sorry, I didn’t realize I was forcing you to feel that way as well, but I just can’t stand to sit around when there could be somebody out there who needs our help.”

And Wanda does know. Maybe not so much personally but she remembers Ultron’s mechanical voice stopping his long rant about Tony Stark to focus on the Captain so long ago. “He thinks he’s fighting for peace, but really he just doesn’t want to stop long enough and realize how empty his own life is. You don’t destroy Captain America by giving him too great a challenge, you give him peace and he’ll destroy himself.” 

She hates having to think Ultron might have been right, but Steve does seem less himself and more withdrawn than she’s known him to be.

She nods, but she doesn’t really know what to do.

* * *

 

It’s her turn to do the grocery run. She usually does it anyway, being able to deflect anyone who looks a little too closely and become just another face in the crowd. She buys just enough for the next few days, not wanting them to be loaded down with too much when she passes the small electronics section. There’s a camera for sale that stands out to her. Nothing special, mid-priced and advertising quality photos.

Without really thinking about it, she’s asking for it to be brought up to the register to be purchased with the rest of her groceries. Money wise, they aren’t exactly rolling in it, but they make do. It was probably more than she should have spent, but in their ‘borrowed’ car, she can’t really feel too much remorse.

There are a lot of things she wishes she had photographs of. Sokovia from her childhood, their old apartment, her parents who have long been forgotten by the world, the little cat that slept on either her or Pietro’s bed. Pietro exists in videos and HYDRA mugshots, but she thinks it would be nice to have a picture of the way she remembers him. It’s been over two years, but Wanda knows that as she grows older Pietro will always remain a young man in her memories, never aging a day over the last time she saw him.

At the small little motel they’re staying in tonight, Steve helps her put their minimal food stock away while a black and white movie plays on in the background. She snaps a picture of him when they’re done and he looks mildly surprised, “what’s that?”

“A camera.”

“Yeah, but why do you have one?”

She smiles and puts it back on the charger, “I think someday I’m going to look back and be grateful to have these pictures.”

He looks back at the old movie still playing but says nothing. With a gentle push against his mind, she thinks he understands.

* * *

 

_The Maximoff’s were never by any means rich. Her father worked six days a week and usually for twelve hours on most of them. He worked with his hands, but he also liked to read. He read to her and Pietro if he got home before they were asleep._

_Her mother was a seamstress who worked from home so she could be with the twins. She often complained about how hard it was to have two kids at once, but Wanda always got the feeling that her mother loved the challenge of it._

_They hadn’t planned on having twins, and the surprise had been a blessing as well as a strain when it came to money. But they did fairly well for themselves, despite everything. They were better off than most others during the war._

_They were happy despite their poverty and Wanda loved when her father was home early enough and her mother had the time and money to make a dinner they could all sit down for._

* * *

 

She’s not really sure where they are anymore, but they keep driving without a real purpose and she knows it’s getting to him again. It’s starting to get to her as well, but she doesn’t want to say anything yet.

They stop at a park and she gets out to stretch her legs while he grabs something to eat out of the vending machines.

Wanda’s heart skips a beat and even Steve freezes when the phone meant exclusively for Tony rings.

He pulls it out of his coat pocket but looks confused, so she assumes the number on the screen isn’t what he’s expecting. Unsure of where she should be, she stands a respectable distance but can’t help but listen in when he answers.

“Hello?”

“Captain, how’ve you been?” A stranger’s voice asks, and Wanda is scanning the park for any sign of danger.

“Fury.” Steve says, and she picks up on a bit of relief in his tone.

“I heard Wilson and Barton are out of play. Are you alone?”

“No, Wanda and I are still together.”

“The witch?”

Wanda’s nose wrinkles and Steve shots her an apologetic smile. She’s never met Fury, but she’s heard enough about him not to be surprised he has Steve’s number.

“Yeah, she’s been very helpful.”

“Well if you’re up for it, I have a mission that could definitely benefit from having a witch partner.”

* * *

 

 _Their father had picked up a few extra shifts at the factory to get them new shoes_ that  _year. In the shoe store, Wanda walked around in the plain brown mary jane shoes.  They were sturdy and of a higher quality than her last pair_

_“Do they fit alright? It’s okay if they’re a little big. They need to last you at least a year.” Her mother asked. Wanda smiled and took another walk down the little aisle of shoes._

_“They feel good.”_

_“Well, okay. You’re taken care of. Pietro? How are yours?”_

_He wore sturdy work boots and gave a thumbs up. “They fit.”_

* * *

The mission was simple and over long before either Wanda or Steve had expected. Rogue HYDRA agent captured and turned over to a trustworthy S.H.I.E.L.D contact. Easy, and then back to the road though they were both in much higher spirits than before, with Fury asking that they take on more work in the future, all off the books of course.

After they checked into their next hotel, Wanda made a trip to the drugstore and got her photos printed and bought an album for them. Back in the room, while Steve was off on a run, she went through each picture.

Most were of the sights she had seen, and then there were the ones of her or of Steve. Only one of them together when she had asked a stranger to take a picture of them. She grabbed the hotel pen and wrote on the back of each picture where it was taken before putting them in the album and deleting the digital copies.

* * *

 

In the next hotel, a few hundred miles from the last, it was Steve’s turn to do laundry. She finished with groceries and jumped onto the bed, grabbing a new bottle of nail polish and giving her toes a touch up while the T.V played in the background. When her show ended, she flipped channels absentmindedly while focusing on not getting paint on her skin.

“ _Tony Stark was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom today, though not without controversy.”_

Wanda’s eyes snapped up and her mood soured when she saw the press photos. She nearly flipped channels, but it was nice to see Rhodes on his feet again… and to see Vision.

* * *

 

A few weeks later and there is a fair amount of coverage on the memorial of Sokovia on the anniversary of her destruction. Wanda tries not to let it affect her, but her game is off all day and Steve stays closer than usual. It’s not until they stop at a small diner for lunch that she realizes how much she must be projecting her grief when she sees Steve in obvious pain.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” She manages to snap out of her mourning just long enough to consider how he might feel with her projecting her mess of emotions, “I would get it under control had I known…”

“Sokovia was your home, it’s only natural you would be grieving today.”

She wanted to tell him she was sorry he had to share in her pain, but there was no fixing that. Instead, she spoke from the heart as she so often did in Steve Roger’s company. “You know, I don’t have a single picture of my old home? Or of my family. They exist only here, now.” She tapped her temple with a ringed finger.

His eyes drift to the camera resting on the table between them and she begins to feel self-conscience about opening up the way she had.

“I don’t have a photo of my mother, either.” Steve says, taking a look out the large bay windows out into the countryside. “Or my father, but I don’t really remember him. He died when I was young. I have pictures of Bucky and… and Peggy.”

She remembers the vision she gave him, and of a woman with red lips and dark hair asking him if he was ready to dance.

He clears his throat and looks back at her. “There are pictures of Brooklyn from my time, but it’s not how I remember it.”

Wanda understands that, because her Sokovia was only a decade ago but the pictures she sees of it aren’t the way  _she_ remembers it. They don’t capture the smells, or the places she walked by, the people she once knew.

She smiles at him then, tired but grateful to have a friend through all of this. She still feels lonely sometimes, but with Steve she has a freedom she once only dreamed of.

“Can I show you?” She asks, wanting to share with somebody. Today is a day for being sad at the city that fell from the sky, but she wants to show somebody what it was before that. Steve nods and she makes sure nobody is paying attention when she reaches out and presses a finger against his forehead.

It’s the street she used to walk down every morning and afternoon with Pietro on their way to school. There was an old woman who sat on her porch in the afternoons that they never spoke to, but who she always liked to see.  There was a bakery that always smelled so good and a small grocery store that kept flowers planted out front.

When she pulls away, Steve gives her another sad smile but their food arrives and they focus on that instead of what they’ve lost.

* * *

 

_The orphanages had been full, and most schools still standing were over run. They were ten, but they could take care of themselves better than most children, so they were sent to a refugee camp meant for mostly women and children._

_It wasn’t so bad at first, but Wanda and Pietro were too busy mourning everything they had lost to see the warning signs. Food was growing scarce, and medicine was being held onto a little more tightly._

_The Maximoff twins shared a cot, and both would wake every morning as though their mother had come to wake them up._

_Wanda used the long sleeve of her donated shirt to clean her stained mary janes. It had been only six months, but she had promised to make them last a year._

* * *

 

They get a room after their lunch, getting off the road a little earlier than usual. Wanda doesn’t watch T.V. She doesn’t want to watch the tributes and the mourners. Pietro had died there, her parents had been entombed there, and she couldn’t bring herself to relive that. Maybe someday she would watch the tributes, but for now she banned all images of Sokovia’s destruction from her general viewing.

Where Steve went, she wasn’t sure, but she can feel him long before she sees him. He’s coming down the hall but she can feel his anxiety and self-doubt. It’s been there before, but it’s overpowering now, enough that Wanda thinks something could actually be wrong. She’s ready for anything when he finally comes in, his steps had been slow and it had taken him a while to get down the halls and that had only increased her worry.

“What’s up?” She tries to sound nonchalant, noting the paper folded in his hands.

He says nothing when he hands her the paper and she takes it curiously albeit nervously.

She unfolds it and gasps, nearly dropping it onto the comforter.

It’s the street she had shown him, a detailed sketch of the long road she would walk daily in her youth. There’s the old woman on her porch watching Pietro walking ahead of her, and the grocery store with the flowers up front. He’s captured every crack in the sidewalk and cloud in the sky.

Wanda feels her chin wobble and has just enough strength to hold the drawing up before her tears will ruin it.

“Steve… thank you.” She sets it onto the nightstand before throwing her arms around him. He hesitates before holding her at the waist and lets her cry onto his shoulder for a few minutes.

Her new drawing goes into her nearly full photo album, the little note on the back of it hidden but read over and over when she dares to take it out of the plastic covering.

_Not just in your memories._

* * *

 

Steve grows a beard and Wanda moves on to her second photo album.

They make a detour to Russia for Fury and in the streets of Mosco a picture of them is captured and spread around the world as a positive ID of Captain America and the Scarlet Witch. She sees the rumors plastered on every tabloid when they make it back to America, a small little news stand in Portland, Oregon offers a variety of rumors about the two of them.

They go north and it gets far colder than she’s used to. They buy an extra blanket and beneath the covers their legs entwine. Fury calls when something comes up and they are shadow agents, operating without failure.

* * *

 

The mountain lodge they’re staying in is far out of the way of civilization. They’ve done good work, but things are tense with a new president who has taken a firmer anti-enhancement position. General Ross is said to have more influence than before, and Steve and Wanda exercise more caution, as does Nick Fury who won’t give them a new assignment until he can get eyes in the new White House.

Steve leaves for the day, saying it’s recon, but Wanda suspects he just wants to get out in the snow. Not a cold fan herself and still sore from their training session the day before, she stays in the lodge bundled up and sipping coco while reading her book. Later, she heads up to their room and plans on a shower.

The doors just shut when her hands glow red and she realizes she’s not alone. Her powers swirl and she prepares for an attack, her body tensing and her eyes scanning around the room. She doesn’t relax when Vision moves through the wall and solidifies to stand before her.

“Viz? What are you doing here?” her voice is sharper than she intended but she feels like a caged animal and fears he’s brought reinforcements.

“Please do not be afraid, I am not here to turn you in.” He turns to look at the only bed in the room and then back to her, “is the Captain around?”

“He’s out.” Wanda answers tightly, hands still charged with more power than she’s sure a human body should ever be able to wield.

“I have worried for you, Wanda, and just wanted to be sure you were safe.”

“And that’s the only reason you’re here?” Her accent slips the way it still does when she becomes upset, but she reigns in the red glow around her before she might lose control.

“If you are willing, I would like to make a deal with our new government. It will be minimal time in facility and probation, but you can be back and gain the public’s trust, as I have.”

“I’ll be a prisoner.”

“You will be earning your place in society.”

She thinks of all the sights she has seen and captured on her camera. She has known a freedom she had never thought possible with Steve and can’t imagine being watched constantly by a government body that will always consider her a weapon. To them, she will always be the tool they can use or the one that is a threat and needs elimination. When she swallows the lump in her throat, she swears there is a collar obstructing her breathing as there had been on the Raft.

“Viz, no.”

“Please reconsider.”

“Vision, I said no.”

They watch each other long enough that Wanda finally lowers her hands and push her powers away. “I won’t go back.”

He looks around one last time. “Will you tell the Captain, and pass the offer along?”

“I will, but I have a pretty good idea what his answer will be.”

Her former friend nods and slips through the floor and when she reaches out with her mind, she’s certain he has left.

She can’t relax, though.

* * *

 

_Most of the foreign aid began to pull out of Sokovia as time passed. With them went the food, clean water, and most of the medicine. It had only been a few weeks, and the woman at the big tent had taken Pietro and Wanda’s information in an attempt to find relatives they could live with. Doubtful, the twins knew. Their father’s family had died long before they were born, and their mother had lost the last of hers when the bombings first began._

_Talk of orphanages or group homes started up again, but they were told from the beginning that they would be harder to place since they refused to separate, even temporary. But neither Wanda nor Pietro would leave the other behind, not even for a day._

_The food was no longer served three times a day, but once at noon. It had never been really good, but it grew thicker and sloppier and it was only their desperate hunger that forced them to choke it down._

_The clean water grew equally scarce and, in her desperation, Wanda drank from the river._

_Sickness followed, and in the haze of cramps and fever there was always Pietro looking down on her with worry._

* * *

 

She tells Steve, of course. He turns down the offer just as she thought he would.

That night, they lay down facing each other instead of going back to back. She gives him a small smile, “I trust you.”

It might just be what he needs to hear, but she tries not to read his thoughts so she can’t be sure.

“I trust you.” He tells her back.

* * *

 

It’s a rare thing when Steve could sleep and Wanda couldn’t. The bed was too firm for her taste, but Steve always slept better when it was like that. They’re, mercifully, someplace warmer.

In her sweatpants and a hoodie, she slips out of the room and heads to the hotel business center to see what’s new in the world.

James Rhodey made better progress with his exoskeleton legs and there was hope that others paralyzed might someday walk again.

The secret nation of Wakanda announced their riches in vibranium.

The Captain America exhibit in D.C will not be reopened, despite internet petitions.

Captain America refused the accords so that he could abscond with the Scarlet Witch.

It’s all nothing new and so she ditches the news. Instead, she spends the better part of an hour going through old images of her former teammates. She can’t quite work up the courage to go back to Sokovia or even of Pietro, but she finds tabloid shots of her just after she joined the Avengers.

It’s a while later, when her back is stiff and she thinks she might be ready to go to bed when she stumbles on a small site that doesn’t look terribly interesting. It has a few pictures of Steve before he was given the serum, but nothing she hasn’t seen before. He looks adorable in the picture, but he has the same disposition he has now, and like always, she thinks she would have liked him had she known him back then. At least they would be able to make eye contact on even ground.

The site has a small sidebar that says ‘Family’ and she clicked it, not really sure what to expect.

There is a woman in a very old photograph standing at a distance. Her hair seems nearly as blonde as Steve’s and despite her youth, she carries a weight and tiredness she’s seen in Steve like the night Sam was shot down. Beneath the old photograph, the uploader comments that while not certain she is Captain America’s mother, he thought it was worth scanning. But Wanda knows.

She prints a few copies of the picture and returns to their room.

When she wakes up, Steve is just returning from one of his early morning run. It’s still dark out, but he’s tosses her an orange and a breakfast sandwich still warm in its wrapper. “Eat up. Fury wants us to take a look at a retired judge in Texas. I think we can make it there by late afternoon but we may need to make a stop on the way.”

She slips out of bed and grabs the picture still laid face down on the night stand. “Here.” She passes it over, feeling shy once it’s out of her hands.

He looks at her curiously and then down at the paper in his hand. She feels it like it’s her own recognition when he finally sees the woman in the grainy image.

He says nothing for a long time and she doesn’t push. When he finally does look at her, it’s with an emotion so raw that her senses become overwhelmed. “Wanda…where did you get this?”

“Internet. There was a fan site that thought it was your mother and when I saw her… well, I knew it was.”

He looks back down and she feels the waves of gratitude he sends in her direction.

She goes back to her nightstand and picks up the same copy. “I have this for my photo album. What was her name?”

He’s smiling, having gained control of his emotions when he carefully folds up his copy and tucks it away in his bag. “Sarah.”

 _Sarah Rogers_ is written on the back of the paper and joins the rest of Wanda’s memories.

* * *

 

_Pietro somehow got his hands on iodine when she passed out. “I’ll be back.” He promised after wiping the sweat from her brow. “Just wait here and I’ll be back in an hour.”_

_She saw him grab an empty glass bottle, once used for liquor and likely from the relief foundations main housing._

_“Kay.” She had whispered, too tired and still in her fever to say much else._

* * *

 

There is a short documentary produced and aired about Wanda that month. She hadn’t heard of it, but there is a definite spike in the general public’s fear of her. She’s the dormant volcano that could suddenly erupt, the asteroid that sneaks up on the planet, or the nuke launched by an enemy on a random day. They don’t listen to much radio or watch much television after that, not with the sudden interest revisited of her capture and detainment. She tries not to let it bother her, but… it does.

The online campaign is especially harsh, #burnthewitch.

“Do you ever regret leaving the Compound?” Steve asks her when they go to bed that night.

She shakes her head and before she can even think it out, she’s leaning forward and pressing a light kiss against his lips. It feels familiar and equally an inevitability. His lips are warm and she sleeps with her ears pressed against his chest, listening to the steady beat of his heart. The world fears her and feels failed by him, but at least they have each other.

* * *

 

_Pietro was still gone. She could feel that in her bones even though her eyes were closed and her fever growing stronger. There was sweat on her neck but she couldn’t lift her hands to wipe it away. The voices were distant at first, but she heard them growing closer. Wanda was too far gone to do anything though, even if she knew they were a potential danger._

_“She’s asleep.”_

_“Do it quickly, the shoes, get the shoes.”_

_“She might wake up.”_

_“They look new, just take them.”_

_“No, you do it.”_

_“Both of you be quite before she wakes up.”_

_She forced her eyes open to see a burly woman and her two sons. The boys couldn’t be much older than her, but they walked with more strength than she’d had in weeks. They’d been eating regularly, then._

_“What?” Her voice was croaky but she tried to make eye contact with them or do anything that might stop them from stealing._

_“Oh I’ll do it,” the bigger of the boys hissed at his brother._

_Wanda tried to tuck her shoed feet deep into her cot. She dug her heels down but the days of barely moving had left her weaker than she’d realized. “No, no please don’t.”_

_The boy grabbed her ankles and undid the buckles of her shoes. He was taking them off like it was little effort. “Don’t.” Wanda tried again with a little more force._

_He threw one to his brother, and then the next, leaving her feet naked and bare._

_“Let’s go.” The mother said, ushering the boys away and not sparing a glance down at Wanda._

_The sweat mixed with the tears after that, and long after Pietro returned with clean water and held her while she cried into his shirt. “I was supposed to keep them for at least a year.”_

* * *

 

She lines up a row of books, cigarettes, running shoes, and a sewing machine in one picture. On the back she writes _Magda, Maxwell, Pietro._

Steve gives her another drawing. It’s the ceiling of his old apartment in Brooklyn with only the tops of the dresser visible. There’s a little radio on top, and he’s drawn little music notes coming out of it. “I was sick a lot,” he tells her, “that was a familiar sight.”

He flips through one of her albums while they’re lying in bed and have long given up on sleep, “what’s this one?”

She rests her head on his chest and looks at the pictures neatly lined up. He’s pointing to the only non-landscape on the page and she gives him a small smile, “those are all my shoes.”

* * *

 

Wanda doesn’t want to acknowledge her birthday, mostly because it isn’t just _her_ birthday. It’s passed without trouble since Sokovia, and she hopes it’s something that will be forgotten with time.

The day passes quietly. They drive, eat, and spy. But they do not mention her birthday. When they settle for the night, she takes a shower and when she comes out, she spots a small cake and room service.

She hugs him and he holds her close. “I got you something.”

“You didn’t have to.” She’s quick to say.

“Just… here.”

It’s a picture, as has become tradition between them, but she senses his wariness when she opens the envelope and carefully removes the single photo.

She doesn’t understand at first. The picture is rust tinted and had been taken with a poor-quality camera, but it’s so clear to Wanda when she looks at the familiar faces of her parents on their wedding day. It’s been over a decade since they’ve died but she might as well be ten again, their faces just as familiar to her now as they had been when she saw them every day, and for a second she forgets to breath. “Oh! But how did you…?”

“Natasha.”

She’s grown accustomed to the wound in her soul, and the way she feels like she’ll never be really happy. There’s been an empty place inside of her since her family died that she thought could never be healed. She’s long given up on genuine happiness but knows how to bear the hate and fear the world may feel towards her. But Steve’s kindness is not a temporary band aid as the Avenger’s had been. Steve is the balm that heals so thoroughly that she feels herself come back to life in a quiet, beautiful burst.

* * *

 

Her jacket ends up somewhere on the floor. His joins it soon, along with his belt and shirt. He’s always so neat when they turn in for the night, but tonight she doubts he’ll get very far in the usual routine. Their lips are pressed together and their bodies entwining. She’s holding him close and his hands are beneath her dress on her ribs.

Wanda’s hips buck at the slightest friction when he shifts over her and he nearly collapses onto her when she gently strokes him through his pants.

He’s trying to slip her dress over her head but she doesn’t raise her hips fast enough and he’s grown impatient. The sound of the fabric ripping sends shivers down her body and she nearly screams when his hands cup her breasts.

When he’s finally inside of her and moving, she pushes his hair back out of his face while trying to keep control over her powers. There is a red swirling beneath her eye lids that she pushes down with each thrust, but she’s not sure she can hold it…

The sharp hairs of his beard tickle her soft skin and ground her when they reach the end. Her body is so tense that the sharp contrast of relaxation after leaves her completely spent. He’s laid up beside her, holding her close albeit with deeper breaths.

“I love you,” he whispers into her hair.

She hums a quiet reply, too tired to form words. She presses her palm to his temple and lets him feel just how much she loves him back.

* * *

 

They keep running and resisting, but eventually they are needed and they go where they have to be.   

The world changes once again, so quickly and thoroughly she can barely wrap her head around it. They will call it the Infinity War, later, but she just knows it as chaos at first. The Avengers reunite, and some of them die, but ultimately their world and the galaxy are saved.

In their apartment, Wanda sometimes misses their adventures on the run. Steve must too, but they have plenty to stay occupied with on their missions.

Steve sketches so many images that she treasures and her photos eventually fill the shelves beside their bed.

“I have a picture to add to a photo album,” she tells him one day, hiding the picture against her chest, “but I think this one will start a completely separate album.”

He sets his book down, but she spies the cover and smirks. The moon landing has been his latest interest.

“You’ve never kept two albums at the same time.”

“This is sort of a big deal.”

He looks confused, but she has already added the lone photo to its own dedicated book before passing it to him.

“Oh.”

The ultrasound is soon followed by many, many more pictures.


End file.
